The antithesis of reason
by Taleya
Summary: "I am not a man of fancy, Watson.  My tools are facts. My life's work is constructed upon them. The crux of detail, the smallest morsel, no matter how improbable, the truth lays in fact. And yet there is this."


It seemed to begin as it would eventually end - in heartbreak. Holmes laid out before me, my nerves tearing to aching shreds. Although, if I must serve honesty as well as it has served me, it began some time before that, in the calm of our rooms, in tangled sheets and sweat-slicked flesh, a thousand names of god and all of them our own.

There are facets of my life with Sherlock Holmes that I have carefully kept from my published tales of our adventures together. The public is at times a forgiving beast; but by the same token it loves little more than to see its heroes torn down to shreds. It is an old phenomenon, known to the gladiators of Roman times and although we live in a far more civilised age, some of the old habits regrettably remain with us.

Thus Holmes was the austere detective, forever eschewing the softer emotions and I was merely his faithful Boswell, his biographer, the serving audience to his endless brilliant performances.

In truth I was his lover, and he was mine. We did not lounge about the gentleman's clubs like so many fey youth of the day; we did not spend our days quoting Wilde and carefully couching our phrases in code, but simply loved in a discreet, illegal manner in our rooms above the seventeen steps of 221b Baker street.

I have changed not one jot or tittle of our personalities in my writings. Holmes was and always shall remain a man of great reservations, a maddening, aloof puzzle but I never wanted for his love, a thousand, tiny ways that showed me of his affections. A hand on my elbow in a crowded street, his knee brushing mine in a shared cab, a brief, aching touch, and later, in the depths of night, his hands on me, his mouth on mine, his flesh against my flesh, above me, inside me, below me, around me. Taking and taken. Or alternately, we slept alone, he to his bed and me to mine, absent, strangers in our own lives. Both occurred, and I would not have traded either, truth be told. Holmes was an enigma, a unique creature completely unto himself and even in his coldest moments I never doubted him for a moment.

We played our parts in the public eye, and lived our lives in an endless series of private moments, and I found contentment in every one.

It was this habit of sleeping alone that had allowed so many of the early symptoms to pass me by. Holmes by his very nature does not sleep well with others, although he does at times make a heartfelt effort for my behalf. He drapes himself like a cat, sprawling across the sleeping surface in a truly astonishing manner; it is of endless amusement and amazement to me that so slight a man can occupy so much of a mattress. He drives himself to the utmost limits, only acceding to the demands of the body when he has no other choice, and when relaxed his body finally releases the fine control he at all times holds himself under. It reminds me most of a viscous fluid finally released from a restraining vessel to seek its own level and peace.

At any calling, it was a dull, grey London morning, the kind of day that sulkily approaches rather than dawning, slinking moodily through the streets and muting the cobblestones. I was tucked comfortably in my chair between the fire and the settee, slippers upon my feet, the morning paper spread before me. I was enjoying the moment of peace afforded to me - my practise had been trying of late. There had been a small cluster of children with croup, and although none of the little lives in my care had been in serious danger it had taken considerable time and effort to ensure this remained the case.

Holmes emerged some time after ten, stretching wearily on his progression across the table before collapsing gracelessly onto the settee beside my chair. I could only assume he had had a restless night indeed - his nightshirt was rumpled, hair unbrushed and dressing gown carelessly untied about his waist. It was a sight he allowed no other - and, I must confess, a personal favourite of mine. No other man nor woman would be allowed to see him so dishevelled, so naturally at ease.

"Morning, Holmes," I greeted cheerfully. He grunted an absent reply, searching for matches and pipe before discarding both and slumping a little further into the couch. Leaning forward, I tickled his ear with the corner of the newspaper and he brushed me away with fond irritation. He laced his hands over his stomach, a gravely thoughtful look replacing the one I had placed there, thumbs moving in a strange, pensive gesture that was new to me.

"Watson," he began, then lapsed into silence.

I thought little of it at the time. He is prone to manners of this ilk, to speaking only to cease to further compose his thoughts, as if they were papers to be ordered and filed before allowing to proceed further. I returned to my paper, content to wait until his thoughts had been deemed acceptable.

A few moments passed, and he began again. "I find that I am in need of you in your capacity as a medical man."

I folded my paper across my knee and leaned forward. "Whatever you require of me. Holmes, you have it." His knowledge of anatomy, as I have written previously, is extensive, but unsystematic, and he has on occasion called upon my medical training to further his own suppositions.

"It is not for a case." His eyes remained oddly fixed upon his lap, his hands continuing their strange, erratic motions. "It is for a patient." He finally looked up and met my eyes. "Myself."

The fact that he had come to me in the first place was an indication of how severe the matter must be. I all but threw the paper from my lap, hurrying to him.

"My dear Holmes - "

He made no gesture to fend me off, and my alarm only grew as I knelt beside the couch, reaching for him. "I find that I am..." he broke off before uttering the word "ill", instead couching it in slightly less sensational terms. "Indisposed of late."

"What are your symptoms?" My hands were already at work. Temperature: Normal. Pulse: a little elevated, but acceptable. Breathing: steady and strong.

"My appetite wavers between absent and voracious. I am tired - infernally so." He made an irritable gesture. "Oh do cease with that abhorrent face, Watson. This is not inanition, my time has not been occupied by more than a few trifling matters for the past month - certainly none worth sparing digestive energy nor sleep. And I have slept a great deal."

This was no new illness, then. I felt my jaw clench in sudden anger, and forced my tone to neutrality. "How long?"

"Three weeks."

"Weeks!" My voice rose sharply and I made no effort to hide it. He dismissed it with a careless wave of his hand.

"I was uncomfortable at the very most, not dying - and your concerns at the time lay elsewhere."

My concerns, as always, lay principally with _ him_, and I wasted no time in telling him so. Although Holmes has no qualms about prevailing upon me for a case, he is maddeningly reticent when it comes to his own health, treating his body as if it were merely another tool to be used and abused as he saw fit.

"My apologies." He undercut what I felt sure was to be another row over my 'damnable mother henning' with two soft words and I felt my alarm grow even higher. "It seems I have been unforgivably stupid. I should have sought you out earlier."

I felt suddenly paralysed, as if all the blood in my body had frozen at once. "Holmes?" My voice was tiny, querulous in the warmth of our rooms, the muscles of my back tensing and chilling all at once.

With a soft sigh he spread open his dressing gown, lifting his nightshirt. His form will never contain the bulk of my own - he is built purely of thin sinew and lean muscle. Combined with the paleness of his skin and the colour of his eyes, it is, I must confess, an utterly bewitching combination. I knew it far better than I did my own at times, and my eyes were quickly drawn to the odd distortion in the normally flat planes of his stomach. The flesh there was softened, mounded into a dull peak by some mass deep within him.

A numb sort of terror struck my heart at the sight, and I swallowed heavily. A cancerous tumour in the stomach is the most horrific of things to a doctor - there is little he can do but stand helplessly by while his patient dies in indescribable agony. The thought of my beloved Holmes suffering that fate slashed me to the core, the very core and I swore to god that I would tear the heavens themselves apart to stop it.

I prayed that I was wrong, a fools prayer, childish wishing. My hands trembled as I laid them on him, working in motions both familiar and hesitant. It was atypical, confined to the lower quadrants, an oddly feminine slope to his decidedly masculine form. I moved slowly, carefully, ever-attentive to his features for the slightest hint of pain, determining the shape, the extent of it and then the mass under my hands _moved_.

I snatched my hands away in fright; for one terrible moment I feared I had caused some deep internal rupture and killed my dear friend. I cast a quick look at his face, but Holmes was in no pain, the look on his face nothing more than an affectation of complete and utter boredom. I moved my hands back and pressed gently, observing him. He shifted a little, but there was no significant discomfort to be seen. The movement did not come again, but it still disquieted me in a manner I could not explain.

I suddenly realised why. It was a movement I had felt before. Impossible. _Impossible!_ Holmes watched with some astonishment as I hastened for my stethoscope.

I pressed it to his stomach, here, there, straining to hear, then recoiling in something very near to horror at what I heard. Holmes was staring at me, lips slightly parted around a question he seemed oddly hesitant to ask. I suppose to him I must very well have appeared to have gone completely mad.

"There's a heartbeat."

He held my gaze for a long, disbelieving moment, then pushed me away with a gesture of disgust. "I am not in the mood for your peculiar brand of pawkish humour."

"There is a heartbeat, Holmes. A _heartbeat_." Something very akin to panic was rising in my chest.

"Then it is mine. Surely - "

"That is not your heart, Holmes. It's too fast, too faint..." I shoved myself to my feet, mind reeling and all but threw my stethoscope at him. "Hear for yourself, man!" He snatched it out of his lap as I staggered for the sideboard, slopping brandy into a glass and falling to my knees on the rug. Impossible. _Impossible!_ I gulped the brandy, barely tasting it and threw a hand up to fumble for the bottle again. I felt as if I would faint. I felt as if I would laugh. I felt as if I might be violently ill. "Impossible...impossible..."

"Watson!" Holmes was suddenly beside me, strong hands seizing my elbows, all but dragging me to the couch. His face was white with shock, concern overriding all other emotions. He pushed me back against the cushions, taking my shoulders in his hands and giving me a brisk shake as I started to laugh helplessly. The look of barely-concealed panic on his face only served to fuel the laughter further, rising it higher and higher until I was no longer sure if I was laughing, crying or screaming. He brought a sharp hand across my face, finally stilling the noise spilling from my lips and quickly undid my collar, kneeling before me as I rocked forward in my seat, placing my head between my knees as I grew faint from lack of air. I folded my arms about my head and closed my eyes, panting, only to open them again at his touch.

"Watson?" his hands were on my shoulders again as he bent down to peer at me from the cage of my own limbs. "Watson?"

"Pregnant," I gasped out. "Oh dear merciful god in heaven, I think you are pregnant."


End file.
